Held In Catalonia

In 1966 father decided we needed to spend the summer camping our way through Spain, Portugal and of course - Gibraltar.  Summer was perhaps a poor choice since the heat was unbelievable - hitting 121 on several occasions!  I can remember watching the tar on the roads bubbling when we would stop for a lunch or stretching.

So, we drove and camped our way south through France, through Andorra and then down into Spain.

It was late at night when we entered Spain.  As we wound down the narrow gravel road from Andorra and the heights of the Pyrenees Mountains, we were forced to stop at a roadblock.  A uniformed officer approached, asked for our papers, was delighted to practice his English and then spent some time on a walkie-talkie.  Returning the papers, he explained that the road would be closed for a few hours due to highway construction.  So, we were stuck.

About thirty minutes later a group of women approached, walking up the road, set up a table and motioned us to come join them.  A large pot was set out, along with plates and bowls.  They were providing a meal!  We marveled at Spanish hospitality!  The soup was good but the bread was first class!  Dad and the officer talked quite a bit - father in Spanish, the officer in English.  Though we could not know it, father was about to use a whole lot more Spanish in an official capacity!

Once done, the ladies packed up all of their stuff and trotted back down the road and around a bend we could not see beyond.  A short time later the officer returned again and told us that we could now pass the construction zone but to be very careful as workers were still on the roadway and to stay far right.  So we started down and around the bend.

What we were to pass by was miles of what looked like concrete water pipe.  Workers, hundreds of them, were busy drilling holes in the pipe.  It made no sense, but having no real knowledge of construction, who knows what they were doing!  We continued on through the night, eventually reaching a campground by early morning, where we set up and went to bed.

About mid-day we were awaken by the local police whom told us they were interviewing all travelers and wanted to know if we had come from the north the night before.  We said we had and then father told them all about the road construction the night before, the great soup and bread, and then being allowed to continue on after a while.

We then learned that Catalonian Separatists had bee sabotaging the new water pipe construction project.  Ah, that explains all of the holes in the pipe - they were making it unusable!  Then across many questions we were to learn about Franco's problems in Catalonia, the guerrilla movement and the policeman's concerns over Communist activities in the area.  Of course, as we were to find, Franco's freedom was so heavily socialist and the people so preyed upon by the government - no wonder people were involved in what father called Monkey Warfare.....